Best Shortform Science Writing October-December 2016 (A Highly Subjective Round-up of Standout Science News) [Above: A fish-eyed view of a newsstand in Paris. Photo by Mark Mitchell via Flickr & Creative Commons 2.0 License] Science writing at its best doesn’t just impart facts; it has the potential to change the way we think about issues …

[Inside the Alamo. Photo by Jerald Jackson via Flickr & CC 2.0, My own Alamo photos did not come out this pretty.] This past weekend, I spent three and a half days at the National Association of Science Writers meeting in San Antonio, Texas. If you’ve never been to a Science Writers conference, here’s what …

(A Highly Subjective Round-up of Standout Science News) [Image above by Silke Remmery via Flickr and CC 2.0 license] After nine months of searching through short science stories with an eye out for some of the best that the genre has to offer, I’ve come to a conclusion: Investigative pieces under 1200 words are rare. …

(A Highly Subjective Round-up of Standout Science News) The online science news ecosystem teems with blog posts and videos about animals doing interesting things. And why not? Animals are fascinating, adorable, and beloved by the science nerds who frequent science news websites. Many of those stories are well-written. So when you’re sitting down to choose …

[Illustration by Fredik Walloe via Flickr & CC 2.0] A few days ago, I posted Part 1 of an informal guide to rocking interviews with journalists about your science. That post covers what to do before an interview; this post focuses on the During and the After. Step 5: Invite Co-Authors Along. [Photo via UBC …

[A woman interviewing a Lego Sculpture. Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr & Creative Commons 2.0] Let’s say you’re a young lab leader or grad student and you’ve just gotten an email from a journalist asking if you can speak to them about your upcoming paper. You haven’t heard of this reporter before. You ‘re …

[Image by Ozzy Delaney via Flickr & Creative Commons] Movies. They’re the stuff of fiction, and scientists love to make fun of those darn Hollywood writers. (The Core, anyone?) How dare they abuse and twist the science to hit a plot point? Journalism is supposed to be an emphatic move away from fiction. But I’d argue that …

[“Stockpile” photo by Stephen Edmonds via Flickr/Creative Commons] This week, I’m taking a dollop of my own advice and building a “stockpile” of future posts for this blog. But like blogging itself, building a post stockpile requires a lot of guesswork. The Internet is fickle, and even though I have a pretty good idea of …

(A Highly Subjective Round-up of Standout Science News) [Photo above by Raúl Hernández González via Flickr & Creative Commons] How short is a shortform piece of journalism? Under 250 words? Where does that leave all the pieces clocking in at 500, 700, or 1200 words? Those were the first questions that reared their heads when …